Letting Go
by Apocalypse Sugar
Summary: The final battle is here, but it's just her against the world.


She knew their lifeless forms were not the ones she grew to know and love, no they weren't, she had said goodbye to them long ago. They had forgotten her. No matter how many times she reminded herself, her mind couldn't focus on any thought besides the one of her friends. How the green glow of the day's darkest hour was vastly different than their transparent skin, how the dorm carpet soaked up the blood of their wounds, how their eyes were void of all happiness, sadness, or pain. She could still hear the screams.

It had easily been an hour since she left that place in favor of a place where she could get away from human corpses. Such efforts were useless, bodies wearing the same blank stares littered the streets. She couldn't avoid them.

The further she went only made things worst. Shadows were feasting on the dead. The sound of tearing flesh and sharp teeth grinding raw meat echoed against the buildings. Although shadows wouldn't come after her metal body, she still found herself shooting any committing such an act. She'd say a small prayer before moving on. It's something she believed they would have done.

Eventually she found herself on her way to the Moonlight Bridge. She couldn't explain the feeling she had, but she knew that's where she had to go.

Her eyes gravitated towards the sky. The moon, at it's fullest phase, swirling together reds and blacks, constantly pushing against another, but never mixing together. It couldn't take away the smell of human blood that laid stagnant in the air.

The bridge was vacant. Not a single shadow in sight. That should have been a sign to turn back, but she pressed on. She walked with only the sound of her feet against the asphalt, keeping a steady beat in time with the small tune in her head.

Once she could see the other side of the bridge, she stopped short. Hundreds upon hundreds of shadows were gathered. Her eyes met with one and it let out a blood curdling cry, causing the others to look her way.

All at once they came charging towards her. She lifted up her arms and began firing blankly into the mob. Realizing she couldn't get them all, she turned and ran.

It took hours for her to dwindle down the numbers. There were just too many of them.

She couldn't keep her eyes on all of the shadows, they were coming at her from all directions. Her brain couldn't process the movements like it could a few hours ago, her reaction time was off. She couldn't die like this, she wanted to be with her friends when her systems failed. She knew she wouldn't receive salvation like they had, but the idea of her body resting next to their's for all eternity gave her a small sense of comfort.

A single shadow latched it's jaw around her left forearm, sinking it's sharp teeth into her elbow joint. It's tongue slid across her armor sending a burn sensation up her arm. Using the cannon that the shadow was so greedy to make his own, she fired. Blood spewed out of the flesh where the bullet exited it's body. It ceased movement, but something was wrong. The gunfire caused the shadow's tightened jaw to pull her limb, disconnecting her major wiring. When she freed her arm from the shadow's mouth it fell limp to her side. Now she couldn't fire from her left side.

Keeping her right arm steady she continued firing shots at oncoming shadows to get to the other side of the bridge. She'd attempt to get home, no, she'd make it home. She'd make it back to them.

Running at full speed, she plowed through shadows in the way she'd been programed to do. Things were looking up, she could see the end of the bridge, she'd almost made it. She smirked, proud of herself for pulling through.

An unknown siren bellowed from within her.

"**Out of ammunition."**

She pulled the trigger.

"**Out of ammunition. Out of ammunition. Out- Out- Out of- Out of ammunition."**

The same sentence played over and over again whenever she tried to fire. Any sign of happiness that she had displayed quickly disappeared. No matter how hard she she wished for bullets to appear out of thin air they weren't going to come. Her eyes focused in on her right cannon. It was hard to believe she was actually out of ammunition. She had never run out of them before. Then again everyone always carried spares for her. But now she was alone.

A sudden force hit her backside and she was flung forward. Her chest scrapped against the pavement, screeching with every inch. Once the two came a stop, it pinned her should to the asphalt and stabbed it's weapon into her back. The sharp end cutting more of her wiring.

Using all of her strength she pushed back against the enemy, causing the spear in her back to sprout from her stomach. The shadow stumbled backward; she took this chance to pull the spear the rest of the way through her body and plunge it into the humanoid shadow's chest.

Retracting the weapon, she continued on. With the use of a spear, she at least had a chance again.

Once she spotted the next enemy, she screamed, letting the months of anger, sadness, and fear that had built up inside her out before driving her spear into her target's jugular. The forced impact caused the creature's blood to spew out at her, running down the dents and filling up the scratches on her body. It's corpse slide down the handle, but stopped where she held on with a death grip. Bringing her leg up, she kicked it off the end. She paused a moment to feel it's warm flesh under her heel before using it to kick off.

Two shadows were waiting for her at the end of the bridge. At least she believed it to be two. They were intwined and steadily spun without a care or a worry, dancing to the silence of the world that was created for them.

Keeping herself steady she propelled herself forward. This time her scream was one of relief. It was almost over, it was so close, she could taste the bitter flavor of their death on her tongue. Planning to stab through both of them in one blow, she thrust her arm forward and successfully pierced through one, but the other jumped back before the tip could strike.

Before she could get the dead shadow off her weapon, the second shadow seized her damaged arm and yanked it. The last hinge that was holding it to the rest of her body broke. The shadow continued to pull on it, drawing out wires that were still connected to her operating system.

Her right hand left the handle of her weapon, causing it and the dead shadow to fall to the ground, and went towards the piece of herself in the second shadow's possession. The shadow jumped back, the tension in the wires snapped, and sever her forearm for good.

The same siren blared out from her own body.

"**System failure, Please recharge."**

She clenched her jaw, scanning the monster in front of her. It didn't matter anymore, even if she could kill it, she'd still lose.

"No!" She yelled, "No, No, NO! I won't go down!"

She jumped forward, shrieking against her better judgement, impaling the shadow with her remaining hand. She was on top of it now, the adrenaline easily over powering the weak creature. It's dark skin easily parted for her hand, it's ribs breaking as she dug further in. Her fingers wrapped around it's heart, pulling it out of it's chest. It's pulse beat against her hand, each time it did, she'd tighten her grip. Fresh blood ran down her arm, dripping on the thrashing shadow below her.

This _thing_ didn't know what real pain was, it didn't know anything. These things weren't capable of thought, all they were capable of was destruction. How could they have defeated humanity.

She quickly grew sick of the shadow's presence, and gave the organ a final squeeze. The soft tissue broke apart in her hand as the shadow ceased moving. She flicked her wrists to rid of the larger chunks, and wiped the remaining in her hair. It didn't matter any more.

Her battered body didn't even have the strength to stand. Instead she rolled off her enemy, barely able to keep herself in a conscious state of mind.

"**System failure. Please Recharge."**

"No…" She whispered, "I… cannot… lose." All the sudden she felt tired. Her breathing slowed as her eyes began to flutter. She looked towards the moon, the black and red still swirling against the green sky. Before tonight she had loved gazing at the moon while the others slept, but now she hated it. She hated what it represented, hated the role it played, and hated all it took from her.

Unable to see, feel, or hear her surrounding, she couldn't hold on to her consciousness any longer.

She just had to let go.


End file.
